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nvidia graphic card
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#1
15-01-2017
Hi!
I have a laptop with two graphic cards: Intel HD graphics 3000 and Nvidia Geforce GT 620 M. I would like to use the Nvidia for Sims.
My laptop is a bit older already and my system has never been high end to begin with, so until this time I've just accepted it will only use the Intel and thanks to the help I've found on this site the sealine and textures look nice in my game. However with all the nice downloads for the neighbourhoodview I would love to turn on neighbours and decorations when in lot view, but if I do that, it leads to the following problems:
- My game lags way more.
- My game crashes more often.
- It happens more often that I get flashing pink textures. I've had this before, but only after I've played for hours in different lots.
I guess that my CPU is probably part of the problem. I have Intel® Core™ i3-2365M CPU @ 1.40GHz (4 CPUs). I run the game with "-w -CPUCount:2" as an administrator. My config-log however says: "CPU:1955.799926Mhz, Name:GenuineIntel, FPU:1, MMX:1".
I've selected nvidia as the graphic card for Sims in the nvidia controul panel and I've also turned on "show use of nvidia GPU on desktop". When I play Sims, the sign on my desktop shows me that one program is using the GPU and when I click on it it states it's the Sims. Yet, in my config-log there's always the Intel. Also when I download the graphic fixes on this site, only the Intel works, when I use the Nvidia one I go back to ugly neighbourhood textures and sealines.
I have Windows 8.1, The Sims Basegame, Uni, OFB and Seasons on CD and AL downloaded with a no CD crack (which actually made my game run a lot smoother, but the main problems were there before and didn't stop after).
I used the CFF explorer and deactivated LLA. I've got the newest drivers for Nvidia, but the problem was there with older drivers as well. The game doesn't crash or anything when I load it with the nvidia card, it simply doesn't recognize it. I tried to disable the Intelcard alltogether, but that just resulted in my laptop using some kind of "emergency GPU" with very low settings, that just allowed me to turn the nvidia back on. When I used the graphic rules maker, I added both graphic cards to the videocards file, but in the graphic cards tab, where the intel is set to "\\.\DISPLAY1", nvidia says "Disconnected".
Is there anything I can do to get my game to recognize the nvidia graphic card and use it?
Greetings, Cindy
I have a laptop with two graphic cards: Intel HD graphics 3000 and Nvidia Geforce GT 620 M. I would like to use the Nvidia for Sims.
My laptop is a bit older already and my system has never been high end to begin with, so until this time I've just accepted it will only use the Intel and thanks to the help I've found on this site the sealine and textures look nice in my game. However with all the nice downloads for the neighbourhoodview I would love to turn on neighbours and decorations when in lot view, but if I do that, it leads to the following problems:
- My game lags way more.
- My game crashes more often.
- It happens more often that I get flashing pink textures. I've had this before, but only after I've played for hours in different lots.
I guess that my CPU is probably part of the problem. I have Intel® Core™ i3-2365M CPU @ 1.40GHz (4 CPUs). I run the game with "-w -CPUCount:2" as an administrator. My config-log however says: "CPU:1955.799926Mhz, Name:GenuineIntel, FPU:1, MMX:1".
I've selected nvidia as the graphic card for Sims in the nvidia controul panel and I've also turned on "show use of nvidia GPU on desktop". When I play Sims, the sign on my desktop shows me that one program is using the GPU and when I click on it it states it's the Sims. Yet, in my config-log there's always the Intel. Also when I download the graphic fixes on this site, only the Intel works, when I use the Nvidia one I go back to ugly neighbourhood textures and sealines.
I have Windows 8.1, The Sims Basegame, Uni, OFB and Seasons on CD and AL downloaded with a no CD crack (which actually made my game run a lot smoother, but the main problems were there before and didn't stop after).
I used the CFF explorer and deactivated LLA. I've got the newest drivers for Nvidia, but the problem was there with older drivers as well. The game doesn't crash or anything when I load it with the nvidia card, it simply doesn't recognize it. I tried to disable the Intelcard alltogether, but that just resulted in my laptop using some kind of "emergency GPU" with very low settings, that just allowed me to turn the nvidia back on. When I used the graphic rules maker, I added both graphic cards to the videocards file, but in the graphic cards tab, where the intel is set to "\\.\DISPLAY1", nvidia says "Disconnected".
Is there anything I can do to get my game to recognize the nvidia graphic card and use it?
Greetings, Cindy
#2
18-01-2017
@Cindy Sim
Regardless of which card you are using, your game should work - so step 1, we'll get it working for the Intel.
Lagging and Crashing
OK I'm thinking even with your 4 cores, you still don't have a huge CPU, so I'd take off the CPU count limiter - when you have 2 you are limiting your CPU to 1.9 MHz. Which is what is going to be causing you to lag and crash.
Securerom is going to be causing some of your lagging. There is a remove securom tool, that with your noCD Hack will ensure that it doesn't come back and that will sort out some things.
Removing Securom and adding a No CD Hack
Pink Flashing
You've got 2917Mb texture memory, so it isn't lack of texture memory that is causing the pink flashing.
Pink Flashing is caused by a texture memory leak. It is what happens when you have loaded too many textures in texture memory, and the ones that pink flash, are the ones that have been overwritten. In a perfect world, the program would have been written to reload those textures back into Texture memory, but Sims 2 wasn't. Hence the flashing.
So the way to deal with that is two-fold:
check for texture bloat - how big are your thumbnail files (in the folder My Documents/EA/The Sims 2/Thumbnails) if they are larger than about 40-50M for all but CAS (which shouldn't sit at higher than 100M) then you need to regenerate your thumbnails.
You do that by deleting the contents of your thumbnail folder, then going into game and going through the catalogs in buy mode and build mode - all pages.
Also - how much CC have you in game? It's not so much the amount of CC, as the amount of large textures which can cause the game to have problems with texture memory. So for example if you have a gazillion beddings, try cutting it down to 50 or less. There's a tutorial here about how to default replace your bedding textures as well, which means that 50CC + 37EA beddings is still a great range.
You don't need to weed out all your CC, just reduce the recolours that use a texture 512x512 or greater.
Regardless of which card you are using, your game should work - so step 1, we'll get it working for the Intel.
Lagging and Crashing
OK I'm thinking even with your 4 cores, you still don't have a huge CPU, so I'd take off the CPU count limiter - when you have 2 you are limiting your CPU to 1.9 MHz. Which is what is going to be causing you to lag and crash.
Securerom is going to be causing some of your lagging. There is a remove securom tool, that with your noCD Hack will ensure that it doesn't come back and that will sort out some things.
Removing Securom and adding a No CD Hack
Pink Flashing
You've got 2917Mb texture memory, so it isn't lack of texture memory that is causing the pink flashing.
Pink Flashing is caused by a texture memory leak. It is what happens when you have loaded too many textures in texture memory, and the ones that pink flash, are the ones that have been overwritten. In a perfect world, the program would have been written to reload those textures back into Texture memory, but Sims 2 wasn't. Hence the flashing.
So the way to deal with that is two-fold:
check for texture bloat - how big are your thumbnail files (in the folder My Documents/EA/The Sims 2/Thumbnails) if they are larger than about 40-50M for all but CAS (which shouldn't sit at higher than 100M) then you need to regenerate your thumbnails.
You do that by deleting the contents of your thumbnail folder, then going into game and going through the catalogs in buy mode and build mode - all pages.
Also - how much CC have you in game? It's not so much the amount of CC, as the amount of large textures which can cause the game to have problems with texture memory. So for example if you have a gazillion beddings, try cutting it down to 50 or less. There's a tutorial here about how to default replace your bedding textures as well, which means that 50CC + 37EA beddings is still a great range.
You don't need to weed out all your CC, just reduce the recolours that use a texture 512x512 or greater.
#3
19-01-2017
Hi! Thanks for your reply!
So I removed Securom (didn't know that was an issue with Windows 8.1 too), however after I used the Securum removal tool and wanted to use the TrashReg, it didn't find any lincense info. Is it possible that the removal tool removed that too already?
I also stopped limiting the CPUs, however my config-log file still tells me it's only 1.9
I've got the feeling that lags got a bit better, especially in neighborhoodview (the cars run a bit smoother), however not much.
I deleted the thumbnail folder and loaded the game. As soon as I was on the lot, I got the pink flashing (usually it just happens after some playing). It crashed soon after, so I loaded the game again and it was fine this time. I clicked through the cataloge as you said. I didn't have time to play that long yesterday, but I played for some hours today. I did get some pink textures on Sims, but none on objects and the textures on Sims also vanished when I reloaded the lot. So I guess it helped? I also noticed the thumnail folder is much smaller now.
I have a bit over 8 GB in my game and I'm pretty sure I have a lot of 1024x1024 textures. I know a lot of my own textures are that large and also some of other creators I download a lot from. Not so much beddings (altough I guess I should go through them too), but simply objects. Is there a way to batch-reduce them? Or can I force the game to use a smaller version of the textures (they all have multiple LODs)? Also, does it make a difference that many of the objects are slaved?
Greetings, Cindy
So I removed Securom (didn't know that was an issue with Windows 8.1 too), however after I used the Securum removal tool and wanted to use the TrashReg, it didn't find any lincense info. Is it possible that the removal tool removed that too already?
I also stopped limiting the CPUs, however my config-log file still tells me it's only 1.9
I've got the feeling that lags got a bit better, especially in neighborhoodview (the cars run a bit smoother), however not much. I deleted the thumbnail folder and loaded the game. As soon as I was on the lot, I got the pink flashing (usually it just happens after some playing). It crashed soon after, so I loaded the game again and it was fine this time. I clicked through the cataloge as you said. I didn't have time to play that long yesterday, but I played for some hours today. I did get some pink textures on Sims, but none on objects and the textures on Sims also vanished when I reloaded the lot. So I guess it helped? I also noticed the thumnail folder is much smaller now.
I have a bit over 8 GB in my game and I'm pretty sure I have a lot of 1024x1024 textures. I know a lot of my own textures are that large and also some of other creators I download a lot from. Not so much beddings (altough I guess I should go through them too), but simply objects. Is there a way to batch-reduce them? Or can I force the game to use a smaller version of the textures (they all have multiple LODs)? Also, does it make a difference that many of the objects are slaved?
Greetings, Cindy
(This post was last modified: 19-01-2017 11:46 PM by Cindy Sim.)
And thanks for taking the time to look at all this!
#6
15-02-2017
@Cindy Sim
Well, the bad news is that it's only recognising 2 CPU - which is the 1.9 which is not enough to run Sims 2 in high resolution. Unfortunately because Sims 2 is an old game and was made before there were quad and octo cores there's not a lot I can do to make it recognise more.
So unfortunately that means that you'll need to lower your cpu usage to make it lag less.
That means we'll need to turn some things off.
Events, PiP, etc.
Well, the bad news is that it's only recognising 2 CPU - which is the 1.9 which is not enough to run Sims 2 in high resolution. Unfortunately because Sims 2 is an old game and was made before there were quad and octo cores there's not a lot I can do to make it recognise more.
So unfortunately that means that you'll need to lower your cpu usage to make it lag less.
That means we'll need to turn some things off.
Events, PiP, etc.
#7
30-05-2017
Hi! Thanks for your reply! I'm sorry for my late answer.
In the last few month, I've been reducing my CC to 4,5 GB and I limited almost all object recolors and neighbourhood objects to 512x512 (except very few beddings and some objects I felt needed it). Textures of objectmeshes however, are still as large as I used to, I might find time to reduce those too, one day.
I also defragmented/optimized my hard drive and now my game loads MUCH faster and it also helped a bit with lags.
I turned off PiP and special event cameras. I also turned off shadows and turned lightning and graphic effects to low (didn't really see a difference in my game). It helped quite a bit too with the lag. I also turned texture detail to medium, which helped a lot, but it also made my game look a lot less beautiful, so I turned it back on again. I don't really want to turn down objects/sim detail, reflections or NHview, when it comes to that, I'd rather deal with the lags.
Another thing I noticed, my game runs a lot more smoother when I turn on flightmode, although I have always disabled WIFI and anti virus scanners before playing. Flightmode seems to switch off another background programm, it seems.
When it comes to pink flashing, I don't see that much change. I still sometimes have it, I also can't really find a general rule when it happens. Sometimes it even happens when I first load a lot after just turning on my laptop, sometimes it happens after I've visited to many lots, sometimes the whole neighbourhood blinks pink, sometimes just certain details like a plate or a hair. It's really strange. Sometimes, when I enter a pink flashing lot, load NH view and reenter said lot, it loads as normal without pink flashing.
On a sidenote, I also noticed that the "refresh rate box" is grayed out in my settings, too. I'm not sure if that's always been that way, but probably it was, since I never paid much attention to that box.
I also started monitoring my pc performance and noticed that RAM is quite high when playing, up to 95% (game plus background functions). I wonder if it would help to get another 4 GB of RAM? (since they are quite cheap nowadays and can easily be upgraded). Then, I've googled a bit and it seems for most users the game doesn't use more than 2-3 GB RAM, so I'm wondering if it would make any difference.
In the last few month, I've been reducing my CC to 4,5 GB and I limited almost all object recolors and neighbourhood objects to 512x512 (except very few beddings and some objects I felt needed it). Textures of objectmeshes however, are still as large as I used to, I might find time to reduce those too, one day.
I also defragmented/optimized my hard drive and now my game loads MUCH faster and it also helped a bit with lags.
I turned off PiP and special event cameras. I also turned off shadows and turned lightning and graphic effects to low (didn't really see a difference in my game). It helped quite a bit too with the lag. I also turned texture detail to medium, which helped a lot, but it also made my game look a lot less beautiful, so I turned it back on again. I don't really want to turn down objects/sim detail, reflections or NHview, when it comes to that, I'd rather deal with the lags.
Another thing I noticed, my game runs a lot more smoother when I turn on flightmode, although I have always disabled WIFI and anti virus scanners before playing. Flightmode seems to switch off another background programm, it seems.
When it comes to pink flashing, I don't see that much change. I still sometimes have it, I also can't really find a general rule when it happens. Sometimes it even happens when I first load a lot after just turning on my laptop, sometimes it happens after I've visited to many lots, sometimes the whole neighbourhood blinks pink, sometimes just certain details like a plate or a hair. It's really strange. Sometimes, when I enter a pink flashing lot, load NH view and reenter said lot, it loads as normal without pink flashing.
On a sidenote, I also noticed that the "refresh rate box" is grayed out in my settings, too. I'm not sure if that's always been that way, but probably it was, since I never paid much attention to that box.
I also started monitoring my pc performance and noticed that RAM is quite high when playing, up to 95% (game plus background functions). I wonder if it would help to get another 4 GB of RAM? (since they are quite cheap nowadays and can easily be upgraded). Then, I've googled a bit and it seems for most users the game doesn't use more than 2-3 GB RAM, so I'm wondering if it would make any difference.
#8
06-06-2017
@Cindy Sim
Yup - getting more RAM is always worthwhile - we can set up the game so that accesses more than 2G of RAM anyway. But remember, part of the thing is that when your game is running, it's not the only thing running - you have other things using up CPU and RAM, so while the Sims2 might only use 2-3G of RAM, your computer may be using way more than that.
Running in Flight-mode probably does stop a few processes and frees up CPU for the game.
Yup - getting more RAM is always worthwhile - we can set up the game so that accesses more than 2G of RAM anyway. But remember, part of the thing is that when your game is running, it's not the only thing running - you have other things using up CPU and RAM, so while the Sims2 might only use 2-3G of RAM, your computer may be using way more than that.
Running in Flight-mode probably does stop a few processes and frees up CPU for the game.
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Before you post requesting help
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- The
-config-log.txt from the Logs folder in the My Documents\EA\The Sims2\ Click "full editor" below to attach a text file. - Your operating System.
- What the problem actually is - that will be a picture to show the problem (optional), and accompanying text files that turn up (optional), and a detailed description of what happened, and what you expected to happen.
